‘X-Men: Days of Future Past’ Gets Three New Featurettes

With the release of X-Men: Days of Future Past right around the corner, Twentieth Century Fox has stepped things up with the third trailer, which is also arguably the best trailer so far. The film is an “inbetweequel” connecting the first three X-Men movies to X-Men: First Class, as Kitty Pryde sends Wolverine’s mind back into his 1970s body to warn young Magneto and Xavier about a future in which anti-mutant hysteria leads to widespread devastation.

The X-Men: Days of Future Past marketing campaign has already included some rather odd partners. Probably the best example of this so far is the Carl’s Jr. commercials that featured an advert in which Quicksilver eats an X-tra bacon, egg and cheese biscuit at super-speed, and another in which Mystique (not played by Jennifer Lawrence) has to transform into a man in order to eat the X-tra Bacon Thickburger because her frail, womanly body cannot handle all the bacon.

Antivirus software company Norton has previously got in on the superhero game (see: them sponsoring a featurette for Captain America: The First Avenger), and now Norton is back with three new featurettes for X-Men: Days of Future Past, which include interviews with the cast and clips from the movie.

What’s interesting about these featurettes is that at times it’s difficult to tell whose side Norton is on – theoretically speaking. On the one hand they attempt to tie Norton AntiVirus and the movie together with taglines like “Take control of your future” (i.e. make it a future in which your hard drive has not been erased by a virus) and “The time for action is now” (because the viruses won’t wait until tomorrow). On the other hand, they could also be interpreted as supporting Trask and his Sentinels, who are dedicated to cleansing society of the bugs in its system.

The metaphor starts to get a little bit stretched at that point. As awkward as these commercial tie-ins have occasionally been, it would be interesting to see what other products could be moulded to fit the X-Men: Days of Future Past narrative. Toilet bleach? Fabric softener? There are probably ways to make it work.